HAL Film Maker

ハルフィルムメーカー

HAL Film Maker (HAL Film Maker Inc.) was a Japanese animation studio located in Suginami, Tokyo, Japan. Katsunori Haruta, leading former employees of Toei Animation, founded Hal Film Maker Co., Ltd. as a limited company in August 1993. The studio began producing animation after members of the former Studio Junio joined in 1997. Following Junichi Sato’s appointment as board director in 2000, the studio primarily focused on and became known for works by Sato, including Prétear: The New Legend of Snow White (2001), Princess Tutu (2002), Aria the Animation (2005), and Tamayura (2010).
In 2003, HAL Film Maker became a majority-owned subsidiary of the advertising conglomerate TYO, alongside TYO Group’s later animation subsidiaries Yumeta Company (2005) and Doga Kobo (2007). Under the TYO Group, the studio established the editing studio REAL-T as a majority-owned subsidiary in March 2006. In August of the same year, it reorganized into HAL Film Maker, Inc., a joint-stock company with increased capital of ¥10 million. In June of the following year, it acquired the sub-contracting studio Yuhoudo as a majority-owned subsidiary (exiting the TYO Group in the same year). By 2009, it had converted into a wholly-owned subsidiary of TYO Productions.
In May 2009, amidst TYO Group’s corporate restructuring and divestiture of its entertainment businesses, TYO merged and dissolved HAL Film Maker into Yumeta Company to form TYO Animations Inc. (now Yumeta Company as of Dec. 2017) on July 1, 2009. It remained as a brand of the new company until its retirement the following year.